CCS Leeds Ltd provides leased lines, ethernet first mile (EFM),hosting services, VoIP telephone lines, technical support and a wide range of other services. We are also human beings and this blog is a regular account of who we are and the kind of thing we deal with on a daily basis.......

Thursday, 22 May 2014

Key Questions to Ask Yourself When Choosing the Right Internet Connection

Let's face it, the Internet is an essential tool for just about every business these days. Even the smallest of companies rely on it for email communication, on-line ordering and gathering information. It is a simple fact that a business cannot survive if it does not have access to the Internet.

But the problem is, there are so many different types of Internet services, and many Internet Service Providers (ISP's), all of whom have their own variations on what is available. Terms and Conditions can also vary widely between ISP's and are often worded in such a way that they are not always that easy to understand.

Over the years we have seen all sorts of offerings, from dial-up, ISDN, ADSL, ADSL2+, 21CN, LLU, SDSL, EFM, Leased Line, FTTC, Infinity, EoFTTC, FTTP, MLLP, Bonded Internet to name but a few. So how does a business go about choosing the right product and ISP from this many and varied list of options?

Well, our first advice would be to answer a few key questions, in no particular order;

How Do You Use It?

This is simple really - what do you use the Internet for? These days, many companies are using it for so much more than web browsing and email. Many are moving their entire IT infrastructure into the 'cloud', which means that the emails systems become hosted, documents and data are stored off-site and remote working is now commonplace. In fact, many companies are now using their Internet connections to run their telephony over it using VoIP technology, instead of the more expensive and traditional methods.

How Many People Use it?

An Internet connection is typically a shared resource, so the more people that are using it, either the slower it becomes or conversely, the faster it needs to be in the first place. A slow connection shared by many people can become unusable, whereas a fast connection shared by a few is probably overkill and is costing a company more than it should.

How Important Is The Upload Speed?

With many of the cheaper Internet connections, the upload speed is often far slower than the download speed, but a lot of people don't realise this and it becomes their downfall if they, as a business, need to upload content to the cloud.

Planning Ahead

It is important to not only consider how you use the internet right now, but also how you might use it in the future. There are a lot of emerging technologies out there and many companies are taking advantage of the 'cloud', VoIP and remote working. It is important to have a basic knowledge of these technologies and how they can potentially improve the efficiency of how you work. Furthermore, this may in turn influence your Internet connection requirements.

Do You Have More Than One Office?

If you have more than one office, and it makes better sense to make all of the office locations part of one network, then many companies will have just one big internet connection at one of the sites and then link the others back to this site using point to point services. This means that the satellite sites connectivity is routed through the main site and is often a far more cost effective and neat way of delivering a solution.

And here is the most important question of the all, underlined for added impact.........

How Much Will It Cost Your Business If You Lost The Internet For A Day?

This is key as for some; it would really matter in the grand scheme of things. Companies who rely on the Internet for order processing, communication, remote working, Cloud services, e-commerce to name but a few could all suffer serious financial consequences if they were suddenly left without their Internet connection for a day. Therefore, they need to invest in the Rolls Royce of Internet connectivity and even have a disaster recovery option in a backup service.

As a business, we accept that not everyone would be able to answer all of these questions before deciding on which product or ISP they choose to provide their connectivity, but that is what we at CCS are here for. Our sales team are committed to giving out the best advice for your business requirements, and we're proud that our reputation is built on giving good advice.

If you do need any help with any of the above then please do not hesitate to give our technical sales team a call on 0113 294 6699.